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LAKEPORT, Calif. – Fifteen mosquito samples and four dead birds from Lake County have tested positive for West Nile virus this week, according to Lake County Vector Control.
This year, one Lake County resident has become ill from the virus, and a total of 45 mosquito samples, 10 dead birds and one sentinel chicken in the county have tested positive for West Nile virus, the district said.
Vector Control officials reported that positive mosquitoes and dead birds have been found in Clearlake, Clearlake Oaks, Hidden Valley Lake, Kelseyville, Lakeport, Lower Lake, Lucerne, Middletown and Upper Lake.
“West Nile virus activity is high throughout the county, just as it is in the rest of the state right now,” said Jamesina Scott, Ph.D., district manager and research director of the Lake County Vector Control District. “The heat is driving the mosquito and virus activity, and we’re working hard to keep the mosquito numbers low enough to keep people from getting sick.”
Statewide, 35 California counties have detected West Nile virus this year, mainly in mosquitoes and dead birds.
Thirty-five other human cases have been reported in California this year, and this week two deaths were confirmed by the California Department of Public Health – one in Shasta County and one in Sacramento County – as Lake County News has reported.
People of any age or health status can become sick from West Nile virus, but people over age 50, or who have cancer, diabetes, hypertension or kidney disease are at greater risk for the more severe forms of the disease.
About one in five people who are infected with West Nile virus will develop a fever with other symptoms that may include headache, body aches, joint pains, vomiting, diarrhea, or rash.
Most people with this type of West Nile virus disease recover completely, but fatigue and weakness can last for weeks or months.
While less than 1 percent of individuals – about 1 in 150 people – infected with West Nile virus will develop severe illness from the infection, the disease can cause symptoms that can last for several weeks, and neurologic effects can be permanent. In some individuals, the infection can be fatal.
So what should residents do to stay safe from West Nile virus?
Vector Control said residents should avoid mosquito bites by minimizing time outside at dusk and dawn when mosquitoes are most active, using an effective insect repellent, and getting rid of water where mosquitoes lay their eggs.
“One of the most common mosquito sources we’re seeing this summer is leaky lawn sprinkler and irrigation pipes,” Dr. Scott explained. “The leaking water pools and creates a perfect place for the mosquito larvae to grow. Please turn off or repair leaking pipes – you’ll not only conserve water, but protect your family from mosquitoes and West Nile virus.”
Other common mosquito sources in Lake County include out-of-service swimming pools and spas, animal watering troughs, ornamental ponds, and other sources of standing water. The district has free mosquito-eating fish to control mosquitoes in these sources.
Residents are encouraged to contact the Lake County Vector Control District at 707-263-4770 or to fill out a service request online at www.lcvcd.org to report neglected pools, request service for mosquito problems, or to get mosquito fish. Anonymous reports are accepted.
For more information about West Nile virus, visit http://www.westnile.ca.gov/ or http://www.cdc.gov/westnile .
Information about mosquito repellents can be found on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site at http://www.cdc.gov/westnile/faq/repellent.html .
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Lake County Air Quality Management reported that the wildland fires around Northern California continue to be the source of the smoke and haze in the Lake County air basin.
Air Pollution Control Officer Doug Gearhart said the main fires generating the smoke impacting Lake County include the Lodge Complex in Mendocino County and other fires to the north.
Cal Fire said Friday night that the Lodge Complex, which was sparked by lightning on July 30, was at 5,400 acres and 30-percent containment.
To the north, the Eiler Fire in Shasta County has burned 32,048 acres and is 45-percent contained, and the Day Fire in Modoc County is 92-percent contained after burning 13,153 acres, Cal Fire reported.
Gearhart said current weather forecasts indicate light west winds should continue through the weekend, though north winds off the coast will continue to push smoke toward Lake County.
Smoke is expected to follow drainages and fan out into areas of the Northshore in the early morning hours and through the day, with some relief anticipated during the late afternoons and evenings, he said.
The current one hour average measurement in Lakeport is less than 50 percent of allowed federal health-based ultrafine particulate standards, which Gearhart said are designed to protect sensitive groups of the population from potentially harmful, respirable particulate and the ultrafine, inhalable particulate.
Gearhart said those levels are expected to increase at times, localized areas may reach levels that are unhealthy for sensitive individuals or unhealthy for everyone.
Regional weather patterns suggest continued smoke impacts until the fires are contained, according to Gearhart.
Smoky conditions can cause irritation of the eyes, nose and air passages, which can be hazardous in young children, the elderly, individuals with heart conditions or chronic lung disease such as asthma, bronchitis and other respiratory conditions.
Individuals with asthma, bronchitis, emphysema and other lung or heart diseases should carefully
adhere to their medical treatment plans.
The air district, in conjunction with the Lake County Public Health Officer Dr. Karen Tait, advises that
all individuals with cardiac or respiratory disease and anyone who is especially sensitive to air pollution, including young children, should limit outdoor activity and unnecessary physical exertion. Air conditioning that recirculates indoor air should be used, when available.
Drinking plenty of water to avoid drying of the airways is recommended, unless restricted for medical reasons.
Regional haze and particulate from these fires are expected to continue throughout Lake County until the fires are out, Gearhart said.
NORTH COAST, Calif. – The activity of the Lodge Complex near Laytonville increased on Friday, necessitating evacuations in the fire area.
Since lightning sparked the complex of fires last week in the Wilderness Lodge and Eel River Canyon area of Mendocino County, it has burned 5,400 acres and is 30-percent contained, Cal Fire reported.
Cal Fire said Friday evening that conditions resulted in an evacuation order being issued for the area around the eastern boundary of the Lodge Fire near Camp Seabow, Elder Place, Tan Oak Park, Bald Mountain Ranch, Mad Creek and Elk Creek east of Brush Mountain.
Residents of those areas were told to leave the area immediately due to the threat. Officials said the Red Cross established an evacuation center at Leggett Valley School.
Thirty-five structures are threatened by the fire, which Cal Fire said is continuing to burn in heavy timber and steep terrain.
On Friday fire activity increased in the Hogshed drainage and moved to the Brush mountain dozer line, Cal Fire said.
Cal Fire officials reported Friday night that a total of eight firefighters have been injured while working on the incident so far.
Structure defense preparation continues near populated areas, and Cal Fire said firefighters are making progress in constructing fire line across the northern and southern boundaries of the complex.
The resources on the scene have continued to grow, with Cal Fire reporting that 1,889 personnel, 163 fire engines, 39 fire crews, 31 bulldozers, 15 helicopters and 31 water tenders were assigned to the incident.
Suppression costs so far are estimated at $11 million, Cal Fire said.
Cal Fire said community meetings will be held Saturday at 1 p.m. in Leggett and 5 p.m. in Laytonville.
The fire continues to put out a large amount of smoke, and it's the source of a significant layer of smoke and haze that has appeared over Lake County this week, according to Lake County Air Quality Management District.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
On Wednesday, after a decade-long journey chasing its target, the European Space Agency's Rosetta probe, carrying three NASA instruments, became the first spacecraft to rendezvous with a comet, 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
“After 10 years, five months and four days travelling towards our destination, looping around the sun five times and clocking up 6.4 billion kilometers, we are delighted to announce finally we are here,” said Jean-Jacques Dordain, ESA's director General.
Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and Rosetta are 252 million miles from Earth, about halfway between the orbits of Jupiter and Mars.
The comet is in an elliptical, 6.5-year orbit that takes it from beyond Jupiter at its farthest point, to between the orbits of Mars and Earth at its closest to the sun.
Rosetta will accompany the comet for over a year as it swings around the sun and back out towards Jupiter again.
Rosetta is 62 miles from the comet's surface. Over the next six weeks, it will fly two triangular-shaped trajectories in front of the comet, first at the 62-mile altitude and then down at 31 miles.
At the same time, the spacecraft's suite of instruments will provide a detailed scientific study of the comet, scanning the surface to identify a target site for its comet lander, Philae.
Eventually, Rosetta will attempt a close, near-circular orbit at 19 miles and, depending on the activity of the comet, may come even closer.
“Over the next few months, in addition to characterizing the comet nucleus and setting the bar for the rest of the mission, we will begin final preparations for another space history first: landing on a comet,” said Matt Taylor, Rosetta's project scientist from the European Space Agency's Science and Technology Centre in Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
As many as five possible landing sites will be identified by late August, before the primary site is identified in mid-September.
The final timeline for the sequence of events for deploying Philae – currently expected for Nov. 11 – will be confirmed by the middle of October.
Comets are considered to be primitive building blocks of the solar system and may have helped to “seed” Earth with water, perhaps even the ingredients for life.
But many fundamental questions about these enigmatic objects remain, and through a comprehensive, in situ study of the comet, Rosetta aims to unlock the secrets within.
The three U.S. instruments aboard the spacecraft are the Microwave Instrument for Rosetta Orbiter (MIRO), an ultraviolet spectrometer called Alice, and the Ion and Electron Sensor (IES). They are part of a suite of 11 science instruments aboard the Rosetta orbiter.
MIRO is designed to provide data on how gas and dust leave the surface of the nucleus to form the coma and tail that give comets their intrinsic beauty.
Studying the surface temperature and evolution of the coma and tail provides information on how the comet evolves as it approaches and leaves the vicinity of the sun.
Alice will analyze gases in the comet's coma, which is the bright envelope of gas around the nucleus of the comet developed as it approaches the sun.
Alice also will measure the rate at which the comet produces water, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide. These measurements will provide valuable information about the surface composition of the nucleus.
The instrument also will measure the amount of argon present, an important clue about the temperature of the solar system at the time the comet's nucleus originally formed more than 4.6 billion years ago.
IES is part of a suite of five instruments to analyze the plasma environment of the comet, particularly the coma.
The instrument will measure the charged particles in the sun's outer atmosphere, or solar wind, as they interact with the gas flowing out from the comet while Rosetta is drawing nearer to the comet's nucleus.
NASA also provided part of the electronics package for the Double Focusing Mass Spectrometer, which is part of the Swiss-built Rosetta Orbiter Spectrometer for Ion and Neutral Analysis (ROSINA) instrument.
ROSINA will be the first instrument in space with sufficient resolution to be able to distinguish between molecular nitrogen and carbon monoxide, two molecules with approximately the same mass.
Clear identification of nitrogen will help scientists understand conditions at the time the solar system was formed.
U.S. scientists are partnering on several non-U.S. instruments and are involved in seven of the mission's 21 instrument collaborations.
NASA's Deep Space Network is supporting ESA's Ground Station Network for spacecraft tracking and navigation.
Launched in March 2004, Rosetta was reactivated in January 2014 after a record 957 days in hibernation.
Composed of an orbiter and lander, Rosetta's objectives upon arrival at comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko in August are to study the celestial object up close in unprecedented detail, prepare for landing a probe on the comet's nucleus in November, and track its changes as it sweeps past the sun.
Dr. Tony Phillips works for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. – A vehicle crash involving a power pole early Friday morning knocked out power to several hundred customers.
The crash occurred just after 1:30 a.m. in the 7300 block of Old Highway 53, near the intersection of Dam Road and Highway 53, according to radio and witness reports.
Fire units on scene advised power lines were down.
Witnesses on scene reported that the two male occupants of the vehicle were not injured.
Radio reports indicated that power was expected to be out for much of the night.
Pacific Gas and Electric's online outage center reported that 574 customers were affected by the outage.
PG&E was estimating that power would be restored to all customers by 5:15 a.m. Friday.
Additional details will be posted as they become available.
Email Elizabeth Larson at
LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lakeport Unified School District Board of Trustees voted Thursday night to place a $17 million bond measure to modernize and upgrade school facilities on the November ballot.
The 4-0 vote – with Trustee Dennis Darling absent – came toward of the end of the nearly 70-minute regular meeting, and after presentations by Brian P. Whitmore of BCA Architects, who gave the board a report on a facilities assessment, and Greg Isom, the consultant assisting the district with the bond, who briefly went over points of the bond document.
The approval comes just in time to submit the necessary documents to the county. District Superintendent Erin Hagberg said all of the documents must be submitted by Friday afternoon.
The district last put a bond measure before voters in 2001. That $7.5 million measure funded projects including the Marge Alakszay Center multipurpose building, and repair and renovation of classrooms.
Whitmore – who Hagberg said was given a very short timeframe to complete the facilities assessment – looked at potential costs in line with the proposed bond.
He offered “very preliminary estimates” for the costs of the projects that are listed as priorities based on a phone survey to assess support for the bond that Isom's firm, Isom Advisors, conducted among 400 district voters from June 23 through July 1.
More than 65 percent of respondents were in favor of the bond Lakeport Unified is proposing, according to a report Isom gave the board last month.
The projects listed in the bond measure resolution the board passed Thursday night include access to technology; upgrades to existing classroom and school facilities or construction of new ones; a new library/media center for Terrace Middle School; renovation of the Westshore Pool; replacing aging temporary portables with permanent classrooms; construction of a food service dining area for high school students; upgrading playgrounds, fields, gym and weight room facilities; and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accessibility upgrades.
Whitmore said today's 21st century educational environments are centered on students, and focus on collaboration, mobility and flexibility.
As an example of classroom upgrades the district may want to consider, Whitmore showed a Lakeport Unified classroom alongside a more modern demonstration classroom the firm has designed.
Rather than a room crowded with small individual desks, the newer classroom had tables and chairs on castors that can be easily moved, a smart board and interactive project.
“The idea with 21st century learning is that it's agile,” Whitmore said.
Whitmore said BCA suggested upgrading the district's classrooms in order for its schools to be more competitive and viable.
Other proposals included updating school libraries to be “learning commons” type spaces, which involves a move away from the traditional book stack configurations in order to give students more room for interacting with each other and using technology, he said.
Removal of portable buildings could give way to developing a central quad area and outdoor learning spaces, even gardens. Because of Lakeport's great weather, creating outdoor learning spaces “makes a lot of sense,” Whitmore said.
Whitmore said there also is the potential for a creative new use of the auto shop, since the district no longer has the funds for the program. Instead, the facility could be used for other career technical education programs.
As for the Westshore Pool, Whitmore said it would need to have an ADA-compliant path of travel from the parking lot and high school locker room, the equipment building and all of the equipment it contains would need to be replaced, and restroom and shower facilities compliant with the Field Act – which requires that school buildings be earthquake-resistant – would need to be constructed.
BCA is recommending taking “a very hard look” at whether or not the pool can be “rehabilitated” using the process required by the Department of the State Architect – the agency which oversees school facilities and which determined that it had not certified the pool – or if it needs to relocated and rebuilt.
Regarding the cost estimates for various projects – which Whitmore acknowledged during the meeting had not been vetted by contractors, but which he believed could actually be conservative – the biggest overall cost would be for upgrading the 75 classrooms across Lakeport Elementary, Terrace Middle School and Clear Lake High School, totaling more than $6.2 million.
The estimated costs to create ADA-compliant access and a new building at Westshore Pool could cost $1.5 million, which Whitmore told board members during the discussion could run much higher if structural upgrades are needed for the pool. As a result, BCA is suggesting a feasibility study on the pool.
Overall, the proposed projects are estimated to cost $13.7 million for construction, with another $3.4 million for soft costs, totaling $17.1 million. Of that, about $500,000 will be needed to pay the costs associated with the bond sales, Whitmore said.
Whitmore suggested the board prioritize the projects and identify how much they can pay for each.
He told the board that BCA will fine tune the 21st century learning concept to Lakeport Unified's culture and environment.
“By and large your facilities are in pretty good shape,” Whitmore said, noting the district has done a good job of caring for them.
Board President Phil Kirby said he appreciated the focus on the district's children. “That's what it boils down to, that's for sure.”
The full list of projects proposed under the bond is below.
- Improve student access to computers and modern technology.
- Repair or replace outdated heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting systems with building code compliant, energy efficient systems.
- Modernize, renovate, and/or construct classrooms, restrooms and school facilities.
- Improve/renovate/construct the Westshore Pool for school and community use.
- Modernize/renovate classrooms to meet 21st century educational standards.
- Make health and safety improvements.
- Construct a new library/media center at the Terrace Middle School.
- Replace temporary portables with permanent classrooms.
- Repair, replace and or upgrade roofs, walls, and floors.
- Construct a food service dining area for high school students.
- Upgrade/renovate playgrounds, play structures and P.E. fields and facilities for school and community use.
- Replace existing wiring systems to meet current electrical and accessibility codes and increased capacity.
- Federal- and state-mandated Occupational Safety & Health Administration safety upgrades including playground equipment replacement.
- All federal- and state-mandated Americans with Disabilities Act accessibility upgrades including site access, parking, staff and student restrooms, relocation of some existing electrical devices, drinking fountains, playground equipment, etc.
- Upgrade school site parking, roadways, utilities and grounds.
- Acquire school and related support facilities through the payment and prepayment of existing lease payments, including leases relating to outstanding certificates of participation.
- Abate and remove hazardous materials identified prior or during construction.
- Upgrade and expand telecommunications.
- Repair, replace and/or upgrade paved surfaces, turf, and other grounds to eliminate safety hazards and improve outside instructional areas.
Email Elizabeth Larson at